


when i met her

by zhuzhubi



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Awkward Spencer Reid, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Past Drug Addiction, Smoking, its mostly just fluff tho, with a tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhubi/pseuds/zhuzhubi
Summary: reader is spencer’s neighbor and they run into each other at odd times(or, spencer is awkward around the woman who moved in next door)
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 96





	when i met her

**Author's Note:**

> also on tumblr @zhuzhubii :)

Spencer sees her for the first time on a Tuesday night.

He comes home from work to a hallway full of boxes - they’re centered around the apartment next door and are all neatly taped shut and labeled. The door is wide open and soft music is emanating out into the hall - there’s no tenant in sight, but it’s easy enough to deduce that he’s acquired a new neighbor.

Curiosity tickles the back of Spencer’s mind, but he ignores it and heads inside his own apartment instead, hanging up his coat and setting his messenger bag down on his desk. It’s still a little too early for dinner, so he digs a bag of hopefully-not-stale pretzels out of the pantry and settles down with a book, kicking his shoes off and curling up on the couch. It’s perfectly enjoyable - it’s exactly how he likes to relax after a long day at work, and yet he can’t quite seem to focus on the words in front of him. Something keeps drawing his attention towards the leftmost wall of his apartment - or rather, the person inside.

He hasn’t met the person yet, hasn’t even laid eyes upon them, but he can already feel the building desire to know more. Maybe it’s something about their music choice, or the way they chose to arrange their boxes - either way, Spencer finds himself unable to focus on anything but the person and soft music he can hear through their shared wall.

He finds himself rising to his feet and heading towards the door, taking a brief detour to slip his shoes back on before finally making it back out into the hall. And then he sees her - she’s climbing up the stairs with a stack of boxes delicately balanced in her arms. She stumbles as she reaches the top and Spencer lunges forward as if he could catch her from this distance, his breath catching in his throat as the boxes teeter in her arms.

She rights herself gracefully, using her chin to steady the stack and muttering _god, I hate moving_ under her breath. It’s right then that she looks up at him and their eyes meet for the first time, right then while she’s busy moving into her new apartment and Spencer’s standing frozen in an awkward lunge out in the hall.

He’s so busy admiring her that he doesn’t think to move at first, just lets his mouth fall open a little as she squints at him and bites back a grin. And then she lets a chuckle escape and he snaps out of it, following her gaze over his body and the admittedly silly position he’s standing in.

Spencer’s cheeks immediately go red and he rights himself, nervously running his hands over his tie as he sputters, “Oh! Uhhh…hello! I’m, um…I-I live in this apartment and uhhh…I saw that you were moving in? I-I thought that maybe I could…h-help you out? A-and I’m not trying to imply that you couldn’t do it yourself because you’re obviously, um, you’ve obviously got a handle on things, but…I dunno, I just thought that maybe -”

And then, before she even has the chance to respond, his phone starts to ring and the sound of his work ringtone fills the hall. It takes him a moment to process what’s happening, but once he does Spencer’s scrambling for his phone, frantically patting down his pockets until he finds the right one.

“Reid,” he says once he finally manages to get the phone to his ear, still looking over at the woman and blushing as she stifles chuckles behind her stack of boxes.

The person on the other side of the line - Hotch, the back of his mind registers - starts talking, but Spencer’s not paying attention. He’s not paying attention because the woman is smiling at him as she readjusts the boxes in her arms. She’s freeing a few fingers to give him a tiny wave as she disappears back into her apartment, giggling at his adorable dumbfounded expression and -

“-eid. Reid!” Hotch says, snapping Spencer out of his stupor as the door clicks shut behind the woman.

“H-huh?” Spencer replies eloquently, shaking his head to try and clear it, “What was that?”

A moment of awkward silence passes before Hotch continues, asking, “Spencer…are you feeling alright?”

“Y-yeah,” Spencer stutters, “Yeah, o-of course…I just got, um, got distracted by something, that’s all. So did we, um, do we have a case?”

“…we do,” Hotch replies, “And I know you just got home, but it’s a bad one so I’m gonna need you back in the office as soon as possible, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah I understand. I can be back in an hour,” Spencer says, his gaze lingering on his new neighbor’s door as he heads back inside to collect his things.

…

The next time he sees her is almost two weeks later.

It’s almost nine at night and he’s finally home after the case that called him away twelve ( _or is it thirteen?_ ) days before. He doesn’t even both taking off his coat before hurrying over to the kitchen in search of something to eat - he pulls open the fridge only to recoil at the smell, cringing as he remembers the now three week old leftover take-out he’d been meaning to throw out.

The last thing Spencer wants to do is touch the containers - _don’t think about how much mold and bacteria have probably grown by now, eugh yuck yuck yuck!_ \- or breathe in any mold spores. It takes him a moment to come up with a plan, but then he pulls his shirt up over his nose and retrieves a garbage bag out of the pantry - he uses the bag to grab the containers, making sure to keep his body as far away from the offending take-out as possible.

There’s no chance in hell that Spencer’s about to let a gross possibly-moldy-definitely-bacteria-laden thing stay inside his apartment, so he ties the bag shut and takes it to the trash chute as fast as possible, nearly stumbling over his feet in his haste. He’s just walking back to his apartment when the woman comes running up the stairs - she’s dressed in a tank top and leggings and her hair is damp with sweat. If he listens closely, Spencer can just barely make out the sound of music emanating from her earbuds.

She doesn’t see him at first, just leans against the banister and rests for a moment as she wipes the sweat from her brow, bobbing her head to the beat a little as she pants from exertion. _Wow_ , Spencer thinks as a blush creeps up his cheeks, _She’s so beautiful._

Just then, she looks up and sees him - she starts giggling and it’s the most perfect sound Spencer’s ever heard. So perfect, in fact, that he doesn’t think to question why at first, just blushes and smiles back -

And then he realizes - he’s once again frozen in an awkward position, this time with his arms stretched out to keep his hands as far away from his body as possible (because he just touched trash. And yes, it was through a fairly think layer of plastic, but still!) “H-hi!” Spencer sputters, desperately trying to weigh the risk of bringing his germ-y hands closer against the risk of embarrassing himself through his suddenly slow-moving brain, “I, uhhh…I was just t-taking out the trash, you know, so…um. Anyway - you, um, are you having a nice time exercising?”

Just as he’s wincing at the question - _come on, Spencer, what was that!? ‘Are you having a nice time exercising?’ what were you thinking!?_ \- she pulls out an earbud and says, “What was that? Sorry, my music is kinda loud so…”

“Uh…I, um,” Spencer squeaks, “N-nothing, it was nothing, um, it’s not important!”

She gives him a little amused smile and raises her eyebrows as if she’s waiting for him to say more. But Spencer feels like he’s about to spontaneously combust from embarrassment, and all he can think to do is awkwardly wave at her before promptly turning and hightailing it for his apartment, closing his eyes and collapsing back against the door once he makes it inside.

There’s a pause, and then he hears footsteps moving past his door - if he listens hard enough, he thinks maybe he can hear a giggle from out in the hall. He puts it down to his imagination.

…

The third time Spencer sees her is on one of his _Bad Days._

He’s on the roof of their apartment building, turning a packet of cigarettes over and over and over in his hands because he can’t quite decide if he wants to smoke one tonight. Well, that’s not quite true - he never really _wants_ to smoke one, he just sometimes feels like he needs to. And he knows how much of a hypocrite it makes him - on the rare occasions that he does light up, he hears _six minutes_ in his own voice echoing in his ears as the smoke burns through his lungs and he’s not sure how to feel about that.

He is sure, though, that having a cigarette every once in a while is better than falling back into the harder stuff - that’s what he uses them for, after all. And it’s not like he does it often either - at the beginning he did it a couple times a month, but now he only smokes maybe two or three times a year. He only does it on the days when he really _should_ call someone, but just can’t seem to make himself pick up the phone.

Tonight is like that - his sponsor is on vacation and though Spencer knows that John wouldn’t mind, he hasn’t quite been able to get over his fear of being a bother. He could go to JJ’s instead, but the team just got back from a case involving kids and she always needs time with her own after cases like that. So that leaves Spencer alone on the roof of his apartment building with a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, trying to decide whether or not to give in.

He lasts another five minutes before he’s got a cigarette in his mouth and is flicking on the lighter, cupping his hands to shelter the flame from the wind as he waits for it to take. It doesn’t quite feel like relief when he finally breathes in the nicotine, doesn’t feel anything like he knows shooting up would, but it’s a distraction at the very least. Sucking in smoke and watching the way it swirls through the air as he breathes out isn’t pleasurable, but it’s not getting high on opiates and that’s good enough for now.

He doesn’t hear her come up onto the roof until she’s right beside him and her body heat is mixing with his own. “Can I get a light?” she says as she leans on the railing next to him, holding a cigarette out in his direction as he puffs smoke out through his nose.

Spencer’s never smoked with anyone else before - because he hides it, although he thinks his teammates might suspect that he sometimes does it. So he doesn’t quite know what to do when she asks for a light, just turns his head and looks at her for a moment, taking in her messy hair and house clothes. The bags under her eyes that mirror his own - he wonders if he looks like that to her, then realizes that he probably does.

He flicks on the lighter and holds it under her cigarette, muttering a quick you’re welcome in response to her thanks as she presses it to her mouth. They stand in silence together for a few exhales, looking up at the starry sky and watching the smoke swirl.

“I used to say this thing to my mom,” Spencer mutters after a while, “every time she lit up a cigarette. ‘That’s six minutes less that I get to spend with you.’ I don’t…I don’t smoke very often, but every time I do I feel like such a hypocrite.”

“Well,” she replies after a pause, “We all have our vices, don’t we?”

Spencer almost laughs because smoking isn’t even his vice - it’s something he does to try and stave off the cravings for what he really wants. He manages to hold back because he doesn’t want her to ask why, doesn’t think he has the strength to get into that right now. Instead he says, “How about you? Do you smoke often?”

“No,” she huffs out a half-chuckle, “No, I…I just had a really shitty day, you know?”

Spencer nods, taking another drag and holding it in a little too long before letting it back out again. “Yeah, I know,” he whispers, “I know.”

Neither of them say anything else for the rest of the night, just smoke a couple and stare out into the city, thinking cynically about light pollution instead of stars. She goes in eventually without a word, just nods to him before picking up and heading back inside, leaving him to tap the ashes from his cigarette and listen as the door to the rooftop creaks shut behind her. He smokes one more before heading back inside himself, pausing in front of her apartment for a moment before carrying on and unlocking his own.

…

The fourth time Spencer sees her is the first time he meets her.

He’ll always remember it like this: it’s a Wednesday and he’s just coming home from work. He’s tired but not exhausted, and he’s looking forward to ordering some food for dinner and curling up on the couch with a book while he waits. Instead, he climbs up the stairs to the second floor only to find the woman searching frantically through her bag as she frets in front of her apartment door.

“Are you…okay?” Spencer says as he inches closer, worrying at his lip in concern.

She looks up at him in surprise and stutters, “Y-yeah, um…No, actually, I’m not. I…I locked myself out of my apartment. I just got off the phone with the landlord - he’s visiting a friend in Richmond, apparently, and he won’t be back until like _tomorrow morning_ at the earliest. And I don’t know what to do because my phone is about to die and I left my wallet inside to so I don’t even have money for a hotel room and -”

“You could stay with me,” Spencer interrupts, “I mean…only if you wanted to. I promise I’m not some kind of creep…I-I don’t want to make you uncomfortable so if me offering for you to stay with me makes you uncomfortable you can forget I said anything -”

“That doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” she says, “That…actually sounds really nice, if you’re sure that’s alright with you…?”

And Spencer just blinks at her because that’s not what he was expecting at all. “R-really?” he stutters, “I-I mean, of course I’m sure - I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure. I…I’m Spencer by the way, um, in case you were wondering…”

“I’m (y/n),” she replies as a soft blush paints her features, “It’s nice to meet you, Spencer.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, (y/n)” he says with a smile as he leads her inside.


End file.
